Waiting game: U.S. markets unchanged

The major Wall Street stock indexes were are essentially flat on Thursday as Congress remains locked in a debate over whether and how to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

As of mid-afternoon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 12 points, the first day the leading indicator hasn’t been down since the congressional debt ceiling debate kicked into high gear this week.

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The Standard & Poor’s index is up 4 points and the Nasdaq is up 19 points. Each gain represents less than .7 percent of the indexes’ opening values.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened slightly higher on Thursday, the first gains it has shown after a string of down days as Congress continues to debate a debt ceiling increase ahead of the Aug. 2 deadline.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow rose about 20 points following the leading indicator’s plunge of more than 400 points over the past four days.

The Standard & Poor’s index on Thursday was up 2 points and Nasdaq is up 7 points — all figures between .17 percent and .27 percent of the indexes’ opening value.

The news came after Japan’s Nikkei index fell again Thursday, slipping 1.45 percent amid fears the political deadlock in Washington over raising the debt ceiling could spark a global financial meltdown.

While skittish Asian investors, like their Wall Street counterparts, have yet to abandon the markets in wholesale numbers, there is growing evidence of fear that the United States will default or at the very least see its credit rating downgraded, Reuters reported.

“The standard view that ‘America is strong’ could be in jeopardy and if confidence in the U.S. is damaged, the stock market may not be able to avoid a serious sell-off,” Fumiyuki Takahashi, a managing director at Barclays Capital, told Reuters.